SnapShot! for Dynamics CRM. A brief history

I was updating my web site last weekend and realized that I am coming up on the two year anniversary of the release of SnapShot! for Dynamics CRM so I thought I would add a little more background around how SnapShot! came to be.

In the Beginning

SnapShot! was actually created as an spin-off from my JavaScript conversion utility, Transformer! I had just finished an update to Transformer! when I realized that there was a lot of code used to extract specific data from Dynamics CRM.

I had always wanted to create a documentation tool that went beyond just extracting the metadata. So, I went through all of my existing Dynamics CRM-related applications and exacted any code that was used to pull data from Dynamics CRM, created a new reporting framework, combined all of the existing code with some new code, and SnapShot! was born.

Here are the reporting points for SnapShot! v1.0 for Dynamics CRM:

System Settings

Entities

Fields

Relationships

Views

Forms

Option Sets

Security Roles

Field Security

Solutions

Web Resources

Plugins

Processes

Templates

Business units

Users

Teams

Queues

Here and Now

Fast forward to today and SnapShot! is on version 3.3 and how contains the following reporting components:

System Settings

Entities

Fields

Relationships

Views (with and without detail)

Forms

Option Sets

Connection Roles

Field Security Profiles

Field Permissions

Solutions

Web Resources

JScript Library Usage

JScript function reference

List of JavaScript functions found in each web resource

Plugin Assemblies

Plugin Steps

Custom Workflow Activities

Processes

Templates

Business Units

Security Roles (with and without detail and with or without a dump of the raw data)

User Security Privileges (with and without detail and with or without a dump of the raw data)

Users

Teams

User and Team Security Roles

Team Membership

Queues

User settings

Email Configuration Analysis

Auditing Summary

While it may not look like it, just by comparing the two lists, but the current version of SnapShot! probably extracts four or five times the amount of data as did version 1.0.

What is Next?

I continue to add new functionality and refine the reports as I encounter new requirements while working with both customers and partners.

If you have any feedback on how to make SnapShot! a better product, then please let me know.